Divergence
by drufan
Summary: Missing scene from Splinter, Season 5.  With the help of a supposed friend, Clark travels a few different paths in an untrodden yellow wood.


_A/N: I guess this is a missing scene from the end of the Season 5 episode, Splinter. There are hints of other episodes up to Season 6._

_Disclaimer: Smallville and the characters do not belong to me. I make no money and seek no fame. Nuts._

**Divergence**

Martha Kent was a suppressed, ambitious woman. She had married Jonathan Kent out of love. One of the only times in her life she had done anything out of love. She had played the part of the dutiful housewife and mother to the best of her ability. She had concealed her ambitious nature for over twenty years, even when she became the mother of the most powerful person on Earth. Because of her beloved child, she developed into an even more adept liar. She also realized that Jonathan was too good of a man. He would never see what had dropped right out of the sky and into their laps as an asset.

She always had thought that the asset (or child) could provide her with the muscle to achieve dizzying heights of power. At first she considered the Presidency of the United States-- lofty and ambitious to be sure-- then it occurred to her that that was too small. Her son could rule the world or get her there with an ease that was truly frightening. It wasn't out of the question and it was hers for the taking.

Opportunity presented itself in the form of Jon's good ol' buddy fortuitously stepping down from his bid at state senator. Her long dormant dreams started to bud and blossom as the campaign ran. The path before her opened wide and it beckoned her forward. Her ambition bubbled under the surface and her greed simmered in a stew of political aspirations. She knew the time had come as she listened to her husband drone on and on about his from-the-heart message.

Of course there were monetary problems-- raising funds had been an afterthought. In an unexpected move, Lionel stepped into the fray and tried to help. After a behind-closed-doors deal, financial backing was theirs at last. He had no idea that the salt of the earth, Martha Kent, would take additional steps. She had slipped her son red Kryptonite for weeks: she crushed up in everything he ingested. Of course Lionel did not know that her son was more than what he seemed or, more precisely, Lionel had no concrete proof.

Quickly, the boy succumbed and carried out all of her schemes without question, including strong-arming a lobbyist into dropping a new Luthor Corp. housing development for single families. She even had him sabotage the crap factory and a few other installations.

Her father had taught her well. She knew how to present a face to the public that had absolutely nothing to do with her true intentions. The spoiled brat, Lex, had no idea where the attacks originated. She knew where to strike at the young Mr. Luthor to cripple him.

But, as with many perfectly planned things, it all went awry. Clark liked the power too much, relied on it. He liked it so much that he foolishly tried to take it away. He tried to usurp power from his father and her by attempting to threaten those already in office. The longer the red rock stayed in his system the more treacherous he became. She could not allow that. So she killed him because he was so dangerous-- more dangerous than anyone realized.

The ease with which she ended his life was so simple that it was clever. First she made sure Jonathan was out of town on the campaign trail. Then she lured Clark home with the pretense of sending him on another mission. He loved the chaos, the destruction. It wasn't a hard sell. She had a dagger crafted of the green rock hidden in a box on the kitchen counter. He stood right in front of her waiting-- and most likely plotting his next betrayals.

Her maternal instincts had never truly materialized. To her, he was still the thing they found out in the cornfield. From day one, she had been a fantastic actress. She even smiled at him as the knife slipped easily into his normally impenetrable skin. It took a while for the last breath to leave his body.

As she stood over her dead son, her vanity took over. She walked over to the mirror in the hall to make sure nothing was out of place. Expecting to see satisfaction and perfectly coifed hair, she was shocked to see her son looking back at her with abject horror on his face.

Tears did not fall, but pained grief contorted her features and the excuses flew like hummingbirds through her brain. She had had to do it. Off the red rock, he would have stopped her. On it, he would have taken over. Killing him was the only way…

The enormity of her crime hit her. She had killed her only son. She screamed at the image in the mirror. She stumbled down the hall and dropped to her knees. In one last desolate act, Martha Kent held the green-veined corpse to her stuttering breast.

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Clark ripped his arm out of Dr. Fine's hand. His breath was coming fast and hard and his heart bounced off of his ribcage. He felt…he didn't know how he felt, but it wasn't good. He looked around his loft and then at the man standing right in front of him. He thought that Prof. Fine had left, but apparently, he was wrong.

"You see, Kal-El. How, given the right circumstances, they will turn on you," Professor Fine stated calmly while looking Clark right in the eyes.

Clark had thought of this man as just another professor. Now, after the events of this day, he knew him as another like himself, a Kryptonian. And the professor had saved him from the crippling paranoia brought on by the silver K. Most importantly, this man had kept him from killing Lana.

"I want you to understand how I see this undernourished race," Fine said in a casual, everyday voice.

"How'd you do that?" Clark asked. He felt like wiping his hand off on his jeans as if it was coated in slime and filth. "How'd you…Who was that? My mom would never…no matter what I thought earlier--"

"Not your mother, but a variable." Fine stepped closer and Clark stepped back. His butt bumped against the ledge of the half door in his loft. His hands rested on the ledge, holding him in place.

"You don't understand them at all if that's what you think…How'd I see that?" Clark stared at the man in front of him willing an answer out of him.

"You do not know them like I do, Kal-El," Fine insisted. "I have watched and lived among them for so long…" His eyes narrowed and challenged Clark.

Challenging him to what, Clark did not know, but he wanted to find out. "You still haven't answered my question: how did you do that?"

"You should be proud of your Kryptonian heritage; not run from it," Fine answered, ignoring Clark's repeated questions.

Clark shook his head in frustration. "How long have you been here?"

"Long enough."

"Sorry, Prof. Fine, but so far, I haven't been all that inclined to feel proud of my heritage. She wasn't my mother…How did you do that?" He tried again. He had to know. Why was this man hedging about answering the question?

"As I said…a variable. An educated guess…you know about those, don't you, Clark?" There was a sneer in his voice and a cold glint in his eye.

Clark chose to ignore the tone and the glint. He needed this man. He needed to feel the connection to someone else like him, someone from another planet, an outsider. Fine could be the possible mentor to help him find his destiny that he had been subconsciously searching for.

"I don't understand."

"For every choice we make, Kal-El, there are many directions it can take…"

"I don't…What do you want from me?" He pursed his lips, released them, and then continued, "If you think showing me these things will turn me away from my friends and my family, then you might as well give up now."

Fine gave a patient smile. "You have been isolated for too long. All I want is to prove my point. For you to understand how I see them. You need to see what they are capable of."

"It doesn't matter!"

"Oh yes, it does." Fine moved so fast that Clark hadn't been able to keep the professor's hands from grasping his head. "Yes…it does, Kal-El."

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Chloe was furious, hurt, and vengeful. She wanted Clark to pay for lying to her about dating Lana. She figured the man sitting across from her could help her in heaping a little vengeance on He-Who-Wears-Plaid.

"Ms. Sullivan, I want everything you have on your friend, Clark Kent." Lionel Luthor was a careful man, a deadly force with which to be reckoned. He spoke so calmly about betrayal of faith.

She smiled, gripped the arms of the chair a little harder, and sweetly replied, "No problem, Mr. Luthor."

And she had done it. She had slipped him information to satisfy but not to truly inform. The really good stuff she had kept to herself, because her friend was more amazing than she ever truly had given him credit. After signing up to play Harriet the Spy, she found out how he was the most powerful meteor freak yet. Her "best friend" had kept this secret for so long, so poorly, and so well.

It wasn't until she stood behind a barricade with his girlfriend and watched him catch a car like a beach ball that she truly understood that he was so much more than human. Chloe had felt afraid, covetous, and gleeful all in that one shining moment. He was no mere man, boy, or being. He was raw power and she wanted in on the action. She might have succumbed to a tantalizing proposition from Lionel Luthor, but she could turn the tables on the man as well.

She had everything that Lionel wanted and he wasn't going to get a crumb. None of the other meteor freaks held a candle to the super-human machine of Clark Kent. What Lionel Luthor did not know would not hurt her. If she played her cards right, Clark would help her get out of this bind. Even if Lionel was in jail, his reach could still grab her. She would make the Boy Scout her own personal body guard. She would use him to keep the Luthor's out of her and everyone else's lives-- forever. Everyone had a weakness, and she needed to find out about Clark's.

But she already knew one, didn't she? He would help her because she was his friend. Clark was a true hero and would help no matter what. She could use that to her advantage. With Clark's help, she would be free.

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Clark wrench himself away from Fine. It took more force than he had anticipated and he almost tumbled out of the open half-door to the barn. Fine caught him.

"Chloe and I have already talked about this!" Clark frantically defended. "She made a mistake. I forgave her. She forgave me. Case closed."

"I know…but it could have easily gone another direction."

Chloe had been his confidant since Pete had been forced to leave. The sparkle of avarice in her eye from being burned was scary. He could not help it if he loved Lana and not her. They had an understanding now or he thought they did. He realized this experience might throw a shadow of doubt towards her, but he would do his best not to let it.

"How are you…?"

Fine slouched and rolled his eyes. "Doing this?" he sneered, placing a sardonic twist on the end of the question. He seemed to ponder for a minute whether or not to finally answer the question. He finally came to a conclusion when he answered, "I have access to an advanced computer that can calculate probabilities for the outcomes of certain choices made and transmit the outcomes to your brain."

Fine finally stepped back far enough to let Clark step away from the window. The professor wrung his hands and looked very uncertain. "In this reality, Chloe did not sell you out, but you know there are other realities, alternate universes…don't you?"

Clark did not know, but why not? Stranger things…and all that. Plus, Fine had a computer that could do more stuff than anything on Earth…cool.

"Is this a view of one?"

Fine smiled. "No, only a scenario, a guess." He stepped past Clark and looked out the huge window and across the acreage before him. "This race is weak. Has anyone ever tried to use you for their own gain?"

Clark was taken aback. He must have guessed. How had he figured out what questions to ask? Clark decided to play along. "Yes…a cop…named Phalen. But he didn't know me. He just saw what my abilities could gain him. This isn't real and these are the people I trust with my life and my secret."

"He was susceptible to greed like everyone who surrounds you." Fine kept looking out of the window.

Clark stepped up next to him and asked, "Aren't Kryptonians? The two I fought at the Luthor mansion only wanted to rule this world. Take it for their own."

"Sounds familiar, doesn't it?" Fine still did not look at him.

Clark stopped breathing, because it did.

"Like a directive from your father?" Fine smoothly asked.

Clark wanted to panic, because it did sound just like that. He swallowed and calmed himself before answering, "I said no." It had not been the wisest decision, but the only one he thought he could make at the time.

"That is why I wanted you to see who you're refusing him for-- and before you start sputtering-- no, I don't want you to rule them either, just help me stop them from destroying themselves…particularly Lex Luthor."

"If this isn't real, why does it matter?" Clark asked.

"Because the potential is still there, Kal-El," Fine answered.

Clark had stepped too close. He had forgotten that this man was as strong as or stronger than him.

"Even from the one's we love most."

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The tunnel had gone very dark after the explosion. It took a few seconds for the lights to come back on. Lana knew that he would not let anything happen to her. Lana knew him so well. They had been lovers once upon time, in a land far, far away, once upon a dream…

She had a new lover now…a new husband. A husband she neither loved nor hated-- so maybe not so much a lover as a bank roll. A husband she had married because he was somebody and could get her where other somebodies lived and played. She had been infatuated at first. There may have been an inkling of desire-- a smidge of like-- but no love. Her new husband was a means to an end. An orphaned little girl, raised by an indifferent aunt, now sat in the catbird's seat.

This thing protecting her stood in their way. She had played him for the fool and now he was going to pay the ultimate price. He stood over her and kept the ceiling from crushing her, just as she knew he would. Pathetic fool.

She had learned that he was the reason for her being an orphaned girl raised by an indifferent aunt. An alien living incognito in the Ass-End-of-Nowhere, Kansas. A freak standing out amongst all of the other freaks. The killer of her parents. He deserved to die.

She looked up into his fading blue eyes. She saw the strain. She saw the pain. She relished every minute of it.

"Hold on, Lana. Chloe knows we're down here." The sweat poured down his nose and onto her.

She cringed, but he mistook it for something else. Maybe he thought it was a nod of understanding, or a shiver at their predicament, or something that she could not understand…empathy.

"She must've heard the explosion…" he explained, every muscle straining.

Clark did not know Chloe had been discovered by her husband, Lex, and neutralized. Chloe would not be riding to the rescue. She fought to keep the sneer off of her face, the contempt. She always had extra contempt set aside for him.

"Can you hold it much longer?" She asked, trying to sound sincere.

His arms were outstretched in front of him and his back bowed under the weight of the ceiling resting on top of it. She sat down on the floor just in case he lost enough leverage where he would need to kneel. The green rock glowing above them was enough for her to worry that maybe her husband might not get to them in time. Maybe he was not so much in love with her as she had thought.

"For as long as I can…but …" His hands slipped a little farther down the opposite wall to him and did not finish his sentence.

"Clark," she whispered after a few agonizing moments, "Clark, do you hear anyone coming? Because, Clark, I don't." It had been a little over twenty minutes and fear was settling like dust on an under used table. "Clark, I don't think anyone's coming…"

"No, I don't either…soon it won't matter for me." He blinked and shivered. "The green meteor rocks are in my back…I'm allergic to them, Lana."

"What does that mean?" she asked frantically, her voice squeaking. "Are you going to develop a rash or something?"

"No, it means I'm going to die, but I think that's what you were counting on. But I don't think you were counting on Lex blowing up this tunnel while you were still in here, unable to get out." Clark slipped to his knees as she cringed away from him. She scooted down until she lay underneath him on the cold, debris-riddled floor. "Lex has made us his pawns and has sacrificed us both. I guess he figures that a dead specimen is better than nothing at all." He gave a half-hearted and bitter laugh.

Lana wanted to scream. Her husband had used her. It finally hit her like a freight train on a country road. He had used her to get the last sample for Level 33.1. He had sacrificed her to get the ultimate freak. She was expendable.

Clark's arms and legs faltered, the sparkle in his eyes dimmed, and his weight, as well as the ceiling's, crashed down on her. Her last thought, before being crushed and smothered, was that she was a fool for giving up that which she had craved most: pure, honest love.

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Clark found himself on his knees in front of Fine with tears leaking out of the corners of his eyes. Fine let go of his wrists and quickly stepped back. Clark let his arms flop down and come to rest upon his thighs as he sat on is heels.

"Even the ones we love most, Kal-El, are capable of treachery," Fine muttered softly.

Clark looked up into Fines dark eyes. "You're wrong…didn't you see the hope?" Lana's turn in the blender had hurt him the most because it was a great fear. The fear that she would despise him if she found out that the meteor shower, which had brought him to Earth, had killed her parents. It was his fault. Dad had argued with him. Mom had backed her husband up. They just did not understand, but the one thing that they had instilled in him was that his entrance into the atmosphere, along with his home planet, had brought hope. He had to keep hope alive or he was lost.

"Hope? Were we watching the same thing?" Fine was incredulous. He looked down his nose at the kneeling young man as if seeing a lunatic escaped from the asylum.

"Hope…they saw the error of their ways. They might've betrayed me, but they realized, and maybe only a small part of them realized that they had done something wrong, but they got it. My mother…she cried for the wrong she did. Chloe, she knew I'd help…she didn't need to trick me…she kept my secret. Lana…" His voice broke and he stopped for a second. "Lana realized she did know how to love and who she loved." His face broke out into a melancholy smile, because he felt bad for Fine, who had such a narrow view.

"Your visions only further my need to keep hope with me. My mom'll thank you." He had thought Kryptonians had just as strong a capacity for love-- his biological mother had had it. Maybe not all of them did-- just like some humans. He hoped that Fine would see it in time. He hoped they could teach each other.

Fine looked down at him and another smile spread across his face. It seemed something had clicked in his brain. "Yes, I will thank your mother…but for now, it is time for me to go. So much work to be done." He walked away but turned before reaching the stairs. "I understand you better now, and how you feel about this backwards race. I'll see you later…in class." He nodded his head and left.

Prof. Fine had expected him to blindly agree and fall in line. Jor-El had made the same mistake of not explaining and just demanding. He had expected Clark to follow blindly. He was his father's son-- Jonathan Kent's son. Pigheaded and prideful were what his mom had called him on more than one occasion. He would help Prof. Fine to see the beauty in this flawed people-- the people who had given him a home, friends, and family.

But Fine was part of his original lost home. And Clark found he really liked that. He needed the connection, because this was someone who knew what it felt like to be way different. He finally felt like there was someone else he could trust now.

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A/N: Thank you so much for taking the time to read.


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